The 5 Creepiest 'Progressive' Parenting Fads

We've shown before how nightmarish and cruel good intentions can be when parenting. You don't want to be your old-fashioned, neglectful parents; no, you're the wave of the future, and your kids are the waviest of the future, and you know it.

And then that entire line of thinking gets completely out of hand and ridiculous stuff like this starts happening.

Raising a difficult child can be hell -- it's exhausting to deal with a kid who is uncooperative, endlessly demanding and spoiled. You have to try to get them ready to deal with school and the adult world beyond, all while helping them recognize their own potential as the next X-Men-style evolutionary leap forward for mankind.

Only they're more likely to electrocute themselves on a socket than command lightning.

Did the last part of that sentence confuse you? It certainly didn't if you're the proud parent of an "Indigo Child." According to the growing Indigo Child movement, your little bratty, self-centered dick is actually a magical new life-form. Seriously, here's how the Indigo Children website puts it:

What is an Indigo Child?

They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it).

They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.

Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."

They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).

Getty"Mr. Fluffles has written a 12-page thesis on why you shouldn't come into our bedroom after 10 p.m."

And:

They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.

They will not respond to "guilt" discipline ("Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did").

They are not shy in letting you know what they need.

Getty"Candy is crucial to my development!"

Doctors may say your kid has developmental issues like ADHD or garden-variety hyperactivity. Other adults may say your kid is an out of control turd who simply needs to be slapped over and over. But they would both be wrong. As the Indigo Children website says:

"We believe these children are the beginning of a new consciousness, an actual change in human nature, and many around the world are also seeing it. Educators, day-care workers and parents are all stepping up to the plate to become advocates of this phenomenon."

Getty"She demanded a blood sacrifice, and who am I to refuse that?"

Yes, you are witnessing enlightened beings who will usher in a new age of understanding, one ruled by the kind of spoiled douchebags who as we speak are using their 12-year-old lungs to shout racial slurs at strangers on Xbox Live. So you take the worst kids and literally tell them that they're more special than the other people on earth. No way that can go wrong, right?

Getty"Then he threw the mashed potatoes in my face and broke our front window with a baseball bat. Such wisdom!"

Well ... there is the issue of the kids who actually do need psychological treatment or medication. We don't want to get into the whole debate about ADHD and whether kids are being overmedicated. But there is absolutely such a thing as kids who need psychological help due to their behavior; it's no different from needing a doctor when they're sick. Only here, the sickness is being written off as another manifestation of their Indigo superpowers. Or, as The New York Times put it, "Parents who attribute their children's inattention or disruptive behavior to vibrational energy ... risk delaying proper diagnosis and treatment that might help them."

Getty"No, no, he's a little angel, he jus- OOFFGH!"

See, that's exactly what we said! So before you clutch onto "My child isn't mentally disabled, he's Magneto," please at least consider that doctors and psychologists might know what they are talking about.

#4. Pole Dancing for Kids

Getty

There are a few things in this world that we're sure of, and one of them is that there is no way someone, anyone, anywhere, would set up pole-dancing classes specifically for toddlers.

Oh, shit. Looks like we're wrong.

MakeMeFabulousPoleJust part of a fireman's training course. Next, they'll hold a hose. Incorrectly. In heels.

The "Little Spinners" class at Make Me Fabulous, a studio that teaches strictly pole dancing, is apparently a real thing. According to them, teaching your toddler to pole dance will help them "use their bodies, move, balance and be free." Plus, it's a great way to pay your way through college. But, hey, Make Me Fabulous doesn't list the kid class on their website anymore, so no worries, right? This isn't something that's happening all over the world.

GettyOr being acted out by Miley Cyrus' little sister, Noah.

Hah, no, it totally is.

In Scotland, Up Yer Pole is offering kid pole dancing for five Scotland dollars (that's five severed fingers of your slain enemies, if we know our exchange rates). Pammy Cameron, instructor, thinks critics are stupid. She says, "These are gymnastic classes, although we will be using a pole." Of course! There are lots of situations where pole dancing occurs without dudes stuffing bills into G-strings and asking for lap dances afterward. We can't think of any right now, but they ... probably happen.

Don't write this off as a depraved European thing, either. In that other, quieter part of America that we sometimes call Canada, people have really gotten into it, too. Tammy Morris, owner of Tantra Fitness, says, "I just had a baby six months ago and I'm hoping she'll start to learn pole dancing as soon as she can."

Position 15: "The Prop."

#3. Extreme Breast-Feeding

Imagine you're a new mother. You're scared shitless, because this thing seems way too easy to kill and is hungry, like, a lot. So one of the first questions you have is how long do I let this thing suck on my boob? (The second being "When can I get hammered?") Well, according to many mothers, it's "until after the kid is in elementary school."

If you don't have four spare minutes to spend being ridiculously uncomfortable, let this screenshot do the heavy lifting for you.

BreastfeedyourchildWe've come up with about a dozen "heavy lifting" jokes, but they all made us feel filthy.

The video is part of a documentary called Extraordinary Breastfeeding, and in case you're curious, the kid in the above picture is 7 years old. And man, does she ever love breast-feeding. And she's not alone. Her sister was breast-fed until the ripe old age of 5, but four years later, she still yearns for the day when lunch meant latching on to mom's bosom.

Coincidentally, she also provides some of the video's best highlights, like when she informs us that "breast milk is better than anything in the world, even mango." Clearly, this kid has never eaten a bag of Skittles before. She also advises that she'd "rather have lots of breast milk than a million melons," because kids don't even realize when they're being hilarious.

Awesomely, the kids take a page from the Cracked comedy playbook by coming up with names for each of their mother's breasts. The one with more milk is called "Milkyor," and the less nourishing breast is called "Boobyor." You can see both in this handy illustration of Beavis and Butthead suckling their mom.

And trust us -- breast-feeding until you're old enough to have a paper route is not isolated to the inhabitants of viral YouTube videos. But since we're talking about this happy clan, let's look at Veronika Robinson's story some more and go a little further down the boob hole.

Robinson happily reports, "It's quite normal in an extended breast-feeding family to have baby on one side and dad on the other ... got to keep everyone happy."

And quite happy they are; her now 8-year-old daughter proclaims, "I don't want to be weaned. I want to breast-feed forever." Oh, and Robinson gave her 9-year-old a breast-feeding as a present for her birthday. At 9. In the fourth grade.